All posts tagged Canadian housing

As Toronto-Dominion Bank prepares for a changing of the guard, long-serving chief executive Ed Clark is reflecting on his time at the top.

Known for his folksy style, Mr. Clark earned global accolades for having the foresight to shift TD out of the structured-products business years before those complex securities imploded during the financial crisis.

Since that time, he has been blunt in his criticism of global banks that adopted “greed cultures” by holding too little capital and playing fast-and-loose with risk. Read More »

Foreign purchases of U.S. real estate jumped by 35% last year, and the Chinese led the way, according to a survey released Tuesday.

Chinese buyers have become the largest source of foreign cash in the U.S. residential real estate market, accounting for nearly one in four dollars spent by foreigners on American housing last year, the National Association of Realtors said in its annual survey of international property sales. Read More »

Housing: The latest read on Canada’s housing market is expected Monday with the release of existing home sales data from the Canadian Real Estate Association. Sales are expected to show an increase of 2.5% year-over-year, according to BMO, while prices are expected to climb 5%.

BlackBerry: Canadian smartphone maker BlackBerry Ltd. is set to report fiscal first-quarter results Thursday and analysts expect widening year-over-year losses and softer revenue. That’s not surprising since the Waterloo, Ontario-based company is in the middle of turnaround effort to regain its traditional corporate and government base in a bid to return to profitability. Investors then are likely to focus much of their attention on BlackBerry’s progress on upgrading its software and security services and its preparation for the launch later this year of a new phone. Read More »

BOC: The semi-annual Bank of Canada Review is typically not a market mover since it’s a collection of mostly academic-type articles written by central-bank researchers. But several papers in the first report of the year – out Tuesday — may offer deeper insight into the central bank’s thinking on key topics. They include an assessment of the labor market since the recession, the “art and science of forecasting the real price of oil,” and an analysis of the Canadian dollar as a reserve currency. Thursday, deputy governor Lawrence Schembri will speak about financial stability in a speech to a pension investment association in Quebec. Read More »

According to the Toronto Real Estate Board, it is. The group, which represents real estate agents in Canada’s largest city, made the claim when releasing January’s monthly housing resale figures on Wednesday.

But some economists say rising prices have pushed affordability in Canada’s housing market toward the breaking point, and that an increase in interest rates from current rock-bottom levels would erode affordability even further.

TREB said home sales in Toronto were down 2.2% in January compared to the same month in 2013, largely due to a lack of available homes on the market. New home listings slumped 16.6% in the month, from January 2013.

Despite the decline in sales and listings, prices continued to go up. The average cost of buying a home in Toronto rose more than 9% year-over-year to 526,528 Canadian dollars ($474,520).

“Home ownership in the Greater Toronto Area remains affordable and there are many people looking to purchase a home,” TREB said in a statement. Read More »

Amid all the chatter and noise about the Canadian housing market, it’s becoming clear the sector is likely headed for more moderate activity in 2014.

In its monthly report released Wednesday, the Canadian Real Estate Association said that existing home sales fell 1.8% in December from November due to slower sales in most major Canadian cities. It’s the fourth straight month of sales declines, CREA said.

And it looks like the Canadian housing market has hit a peak for the foreseeable future, with sales topping out at 40,816 in September 2013.

That’s when many Canadian homebuyers took advantage of pre-approved mortgage rates that hit a low in June, said Gregory Klump, chief economist for CREA.

Mr. Klump still thinks 2014 could be a stronger year for home sales in Canada than 2013, if demand in the market holds steady, supported by an improving economic picture that could offset higher mortgage rates.

But Mazen Issa, senior Canada macro strategist at TD Securities, sees the housing market softening up in 2014, with sales flat or modestly lower than last year. Read More »

The National Security Agency’s monitoring of Americans includes customer records from the three major phone networks as well as emails and Web searches, and the agency also has cataloged credit-card transactions.

Major League Baseball will seek to suspend about 20 players connected to the Miami-area clinic at the heart of an ongoing performance-enhancing drug scandal, including Alex Rodriguez, Melky Cabrera and Ryan Braun, possibly within he next few weeks.

Masai Ujiri left Denver and one of the NBA’s biggest success stories this season to come to Toronto as GM of the Raptors, tasked with trying to salvage a team that has never tasted triumph. Read More »

There’s a new headline-grabbing take on how overvalued Canada’s housing market is, courtesy of Fitch Ratings.

The credit ratings agency said Monday that home prices in Canada are 20% higher in real terms, according to an analysis using its proprietary sustainable home price model.

That’s high, especially when you consider previous prognostications on Canada’s housing market. Back in January, Bank of America-Merrill Lynch said Canadian home prices should see a 5% correction in 2013, while the International Monetary Fund said back in December that house prices are roughly 10% higher than justified by economic fundamentals. It reiterated that view last month, although Canada’s economic climate has shifted somewhat lower since those initial forecasts after a host of weak Canadian economic figures, including poor manufacturing, retail and wholesale trade numbers for December, and Friday’s soft gross domestic product read. Read More »

About Canada Real Time

Canada Real Time provides insight and analysis into what’s making news in Canada, a country punching above its weight on the world stage thanks to its vast resources and strong banking sector. Drawing on the expertise of The Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones Newswires, we take a look at developments in fields ranging from business to politics to culture. You can contact the editors at canadaeditors@dowjones.com